


Five Times Derek Shared A Bed, And One Time He Shared A Home

by sysrae



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: 5 Times, Canon Compliant, Derek Feels, Derek's romantic history, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Future Fic, M/M, POV Derek, Past Suicide Attempt, Suicidal Ideation, The underage and noncon tags are for Derek with Kate and Jennifer, canonverse, nothing graphic, sort of, which is really the history of Derek being used by way too many people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-07
Updated: 2015-09-07
Packaged: 2018-04-19 13:38:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4748396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sysrae/pseuds/sysrae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Derek shared a bed, and one time he shared a home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times Derek Shared A Bed, And One Time He Shared A Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LunaWolf333](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LunaWolf333/gifts).



1.

 

It's raining outside, fat drops drumming steadily on Paige's bedroom window. Derek lies beside her, grinning as their knees touch. They're lying on top of the covers, facing each other, and have been for the last twenty minutes, ever since Paige moved over to make room for him.

'You should really go,' says Paige, smiling. 'My mom's gonna be back soon, and I _so_ don't want to have The Talk.'

Derek brushes the tip of his nose against her cheek – scenting her, though of course, she doesn't know that. 'I'll get all wet.'

'I'll lend you an umbrella.'

'You could do that,' he says, kissing the corner of her mouth, heart jumping at the way she shivers. 'But then you'd have the Missing Umbrella Talk instead.'

'Fair,' says Paige. 'Mom is kinda obsessive about the coat rack.'

'I remember,' says Derek. 'You told me.'

'Still, though. Umbrellas are easier than boyfriends.'

It's the first time she's ever called him that, and Derek sort of stops breathing. He's called her his girlfriend before, and Paige hasn't objected, but she's never quite said it back, either, and now that she has –

'Or I could stay,' he says, trying to sound offhand about it. 'I could meet her, if you wanted.'

Paige sighs, pulling back a little. 'Derek –'

'I know.' He ducks his head, letting their foreheads bump in gentle apology. 'She wants you to focus on your music, not some _boy_. It's all right.'

'No, it's not.' Abruptly, she looks angry, but not at him. 'It's not fair of me to keep you secret, okay? But it's not fair of her to say I can't date right now, either. I just –' she bites her lip, looping her hair behind her ear, '– I just want to wait until after my next exam, you know? Because then when I ace it and she tries to say how I wouldn't have done as well if I had a boyfriend distracting me, I can tell her I did _exactly_ that well _because_ I have a boyfriend _helping_ me. She's a rational woman, coat rack aside.' Paige kisses the tip of his nose. 'She'll listen to the evidence.'

Derek's reply is forestalled by the sound of a car pulling up outside. He groans a little. 'I think she's home.'

'Fuck,' says Paige, genuinely cross, and Derek surges forward and kisses her properly. He loves her sarcasm, the way she swears; how her sharpness never stops her being sweet. The kiss lasts until he hears the key turn in the lock, and then he breaks away, shrugs on his jacket and – with a final, parting grin – climbs out of Paige's bedroom window, shinning down the rainslick gutter with just a little help from his claws.

Three weeks later, two days shy of the promised exam, Derek snaps Paige's neck beneath the Nemeton, sobbing as his eyes turned blue. He never stopped being her secret, and when Paige's mother collapses at the funeral, for the first time, he's glad of it. If she knew her daughter was dating him, Mrs McLaughlin might waste her grief feeling sorry for Derek, too, when he's the reason Paige is dead.

He doesn't deserve to be seen with anyone.

 

2.

 

'C'mon, hot stuff,' Kate purrs, pulling his shirt up. 'Let's see those pretty abs.'

It's wrong, what they're doing. On some level, Derek knows that, even as he hurries to comply, skin breaking out in goosebumps as Kate drags a fingernail along his arm. She's older than him, and he's still seventeen, and he doesn't love her the way he loved Paige, but after the first time, when Kate said she wanted to keep things quiet, part of him latched on to the symmetry of it and wouldn't let go. He put himself first with Paige – wanted her to tell her mother before she was ready, had Ennis bite her without explaining the risks – but maybe, if he does whatever Kate wants, he can somehow make it right again. Not for Paige, because she'll still be dead, but karmically, like a life lesson. Derek will learn to listen to Kate, to do and be what she wants for however long she wants it, and eventually, she'll reward his patience: they'll go public together, when both of them are ready (and when Derek's age doesn't make the whole thing illegal) and when Kate's known him long enough to finally ask about werewolves on her own.

This last is why he tells her so much about his family. Paige figured it out without help, but Paige was special; he can't be sure that Kate will make the same leaps, let alone be so accepting, and after what happened at the Nemeton, he needs to get this right. So he talks to her about Cora and Laura and the rest of his siblings, tells her about the big house and the kind of work his mother does, tries to make her care about them as people so that, when the time comes, she'll associate being a werewolf with being a good person.

They're not talking about that stuff now, though. Now, Derek's lying on flat on his back on the big bed in Kate's motel room ('The rental market in Beacon Hills _sucks_ , Derek – be happy you still live at home!') and holding Kate's hips as she straddles him, bending down to pin his hands and bite beneath his ear.

'You look good like this,' Kate says. 'All laid out for me. I could just eat you up.'

Derek turns his head and kisses her – a little clumsily, because of the angle – but Kate laughs and accepts it, rolling her hips against him in an unmistakable show of encouragement. Her nails are nearly as sharp as claws, and Derek loves that she scratches him, even though the marks don't stay, because it's such a wolf thing to do, and maybe that means it's meant to be.

Kate takes his virginity just like that, with Derek spread out on the motel bed and her above, her fingernails not quite drawing blood where they grip his shoulders, and in the giddy afterglow, already thinking of when they'll next get to be together, Derek tells her he's busy the rest of the week, because his aunt and uncle are bringing his cousin for a visit, but after that –

'After that, I'll have heaps of free time,' he says, shyly stroking Kate's hair.

Kate smiles widely, and when she speaks, her heart never skips. 'I know you will,' she says.

 

3.

 

Everyone's dead, and it's all Derek's fault. It's _all his fault_ , and it physically hurts to _breathe_ some days, but he's not allowed to kill himself, because the one time he tried, Laura came home early from work and caught him in the act. She made him swallow salt until he vomited up the wolfsbane, cut his arm and called the residue out of him with the leftover leaves, and all the time she was screaming and crying and yelling at him, eyes alpha red, that he couldn't leave her alone, couldn't let her be the last Hale, couldn't fucking _do_ this to her, and Derek broke down sobbing and promised he'd stay, that he wouldn't try again. He still wants to die, of course, but it's his fault they don't have a family any more, and living with the guilt of that for Laura's sake is a more effective punishment than suicide could ever be.

He hides his grief, these days. Tries to be strong, tries to make it so Laura doesn't waste her energy giving him comfort he doesn't deserve, but really, he's weak – has always been weak – and after a particularly vicious nightmare two years after the fire, he breaks down enough to creep into Laura's room and climb into bed with her, like he's still just a pup who's afraid of thunderstorms.

'Derek?' Laura asks, voice rough with sleep. 'Are you okay?'

'Yes,' he whispers, pressing his face between her shoulders, knowing she can hear the lie.

Laura makes a noise in her throat, a pained, twisting growl, and pulls his arm around her. She doesn't ask him to explain himself, to tell her what's wrong; she used to do that, but Derek never answered, and eventually, she stopped trying. Instead, she accepts his silence, and Derek hates himself for that in a different way, because she wouldn't be so understanding if she knew what he'd done. If he were strong, he'd tell Laura the truth: it would hurt her, but not nearly as much as having to live with a broken brother clearly does, and then she could make a clean break from him, go find a new pack and finally live her own life. But he doesn't, because he's terrified she might actually offer him absolution, tell him that Kate wasn't his fault, when she was, she _was_.

The thought leaves him shaking. He clings to Laura all the tighter, trying not to cry. God, he's weak, and selfish, and damaged.

He'd rather be abandoned than forgiven.

 

4.

 

He's not quite in his head, when he goes to bed with Jennifer. It's not just the searing hurt of the unhealed alpha pack wounds, though those are bad enough; it's something else, a muzzy feeling he can't quite place, a compulsion that both is and isn't reminiscent of being drugged. He ought to be in too much pain to even think about sex, but when Jennifer leans in, he finds himself kissing her, and once he does, he can't seem to stop. It's not passion, not desperation; he knows there's something off about it, that it can't possibly end well, but he doesn't have the will to fight, let alone articulate why doing so might be a good idea.

His wounds pull as he pushes into her, healing with an ugly sting he's never felt before. It's all half dream, half nightmare, but it's been so long since he slept with someone, he can't remember if sex is meant to feel like this, or if it's ever felt like anything else. Four years after the fire, when he finally turned twenty-one, he went through a phase of fucking anyone who'd have him, leaving before they woke up after, never giving his real name or his real age, in and out before he could do any harm, which didn't stop _him_ being harmed – but then, that was half the point. He'd go with women, with men, with singles or groups or couples, and if he wasn't drug-immune, STD-impervious and possessed of werewolf healing powers, he'd probably have done himself irreparable damage within the first month and a half. Instead, he fell as far and as fast as he could, and only came to his senses when Laura, having finally cottoned on to what he was doing at night – or rather, how he was doing it, and under what auspices – made him stop.

'You can't live like this,' she said, hugging him so hard, he almost missed the shake in her voice. 'Derek, you _can't_. You understand?'

He nodded into her collarbone, too ashamed to speak.

'Derek, no. Look at me. _Look_ at me.' Reluctantly, he looked, flinching at Laura's hard expression. 'I don't just mean you _shouldn't_. I mean you _can't_ , because you're – Jesus, you're letting these people hurt you, and you _heal_ , Derek. You're going to give yourself away, and we can't – we can't move again, okay?' She gripped his shoulders, eyes full of tears. 'I want you to be safe, and I don't want the hunters to find us, and I need – I just need you to try, I need you to think, I need – please, Derek, I need my little brother safe. I need _you_. All right?'

Derek went so cold at that, he almost threw up. Endangering himself was one thing, but endangering Laura was another, and he couldn't believe he'd been so damn stupid, so fucking _selfish_ , as to do it again.

'All right,' he croaked, and stopped cold turkey – gave up the club scene, gave up sex. He didn't mean to be celibate forever, but fixing himself had never been a priority, and then Laura died and Peter came back and everything went to hell, and he's been so busy finding exciting new ways to hurt himself that it never occurred to him to revisit old options.

Except that now, he's having sex with Jennifer Blake, and he doesn't know what's right or wrong any more, doesn't know if he ought to try and stop, but he still tries to make it good for her, because that's just about the one non-awful skill he has, and she's so clearly enjoying herself that what he wants hardly matters.

Later, it's almost a relief, when Stiles unmasks her as the Darach. It feels like getting stabbed in the heart, but Derek's used to that.

He'll heal.

 

5.

 

'You're quiet,' says Braeden, gently stroking his hair.

Derek doesn't answer, and after a moment of silence, she snorts, lips quirking at the case in point. She's warm against him, warm all over, warm brown eyes and warm brown skin, and suddenly Derek starts shaking, gripping the sheets like he's frightened they'll be ripped away, his eyes screwed fiercely shut.

'Hey, hey,' says Braeden – worried, but not alarmed. She keeps on petting him, slow and steady. 'Hey, easy. You okay?'

 _Yes_ , Derek wants to say, but the lie won't come. Instead, he shakes his head, minute and tense, and Braeden shifts against him, lips barely brushing his temple.

'All right,' she says. 'Do you want me to go?'

This time, the answer is instantaneous. 'No.'

'Okay. That's good, because I'm comfy, and I don't remember where my pants are.'

'Under the lounge,' says Derek, faintly.

'Wiseass,' Braeden says, but fondly enough that Derek opens his eyes, swallowing as he drinks her in. The scars on her throat are stark and pale, but her smile is real in a way that turns him upside down. 'Do you want to talk about it?'

'I think,' says Derek, and stops. He flicks his eyes to the ceiling, takes a deep breath, and focusses on the steadiness of Braeden's heartbeat – not with his werewolf senses, which are currently so weak as to be practically non-existent, but through his skin, a secondhand pulse. He licks his lips, wonders if he's really about to say what he's about to say, and thinks, _fuck it_. 'I think that might be the first properly consensual sex I've ever had.'

Beside him, Braeden stills. 'You _think_?' she asks – carefully, gently, conscious of a wound whose depth and severity are as yet unknown.

'I mean, they didn't really teach this stuff when I was at school,' he says, staring fixedly at a spidering crack in the roof. 'But Stiles, we were talking the other day, and he said he freaked out when he and Malia first started dating because he wasn't sure if what happened between them in Eichen House was okay, because she'd been a coyote for so long and because he'd had the Nogitsune steering him, and he went on about informed, enthusiastic consent, how you need to be sober enough to make good decisions, and I –' he sucks in air, tensing against the mattress, '– I've never really done that.'

'Well, for what it's worth,' says Braeden, softly, ' _I_ think you're a good decision.' She stretches languidly against him. ' _Very_ good, in fact.'

Something in Derek relaxes, a muscle he didn't know was clenched. He looks at her again – warm, warm – and feels the smile spread across his face.

'You, too,' he says, and kisses her softly, sweet and brief, until she nestles her head on his shoulder.

It's Derek's longest relationship; the first real one he's ever had. He never tells Braeden more about his past, because he doesn't know how much she already knows – she's a bounty hunter, after all; probably did her research the first time she came to find him, and after the thing with Kate, _again_ , it's hard to imagine he's got any secrets left – but then, she doesn't talk much about herself, either. They're kind to each other, sweet in bed and sweet elsewhere, with just a little bit of snark; Braeden gives him a baseline he didn't know he needed, shows him what gentleness looks like when it's paired with strength, and Derek loves her for that, just a little. They travel together, leave Beacon Hills, and for five uncomplicated months, Derek lets himself believe that he's a nomad, too; that he could live like Braeden does, and be content forever.

And then, one day, they pass through some tiny Arizona town, and Derek sees a little girl squeal as her father hoists her up onto his shoulders, laughing as her mother kisses him on the cheek, and it's such a small thing, he must've seen a hundred, a thousand moments like it, but this one burrows into him like a hookworm, and he stops dead on the pavement, a wounded noise in the back of his throat.

Braeden stops beside him, looks from Derek to the family and back again, and squeezes his fingers.

'You want that life,' she says, and it's not a question. Dry-mouthed, Derek nods, makes himself look at her. Braden's eyes are no less kind than they've ever been, though just this once, they're a little sad, too.

'I don't,' she says, simply. 'I never have.' And she leans in, placing a gentle kiss on his forehead.

'It doesn't have to mean anything,' says Derek, voice small. 'It's not like I could ever – there are things I don't, that I can't –'

'Derek.' Braeden's palm is warm against his cheek. 'You're allowed to want things for yourself. You're even allowed to fight for them, too. We both knew this wasn't forever.'

'Did we?' Derek asks, but he already knows it's true, and part of him feels relieved, and part of him feels more lost than he's ever been.

'Don't look like that,' says Braeden, hooking her arm through his. She starts walking again, forcing Derek to follow. 'I'm not just going to abandon you on the side of the road.'

'Oh,' says Derek, who'd half been expecting exactly that. Braeden makes a fond, exasperated noise, tugging his arm a little closer. 'Come on. We'll go back to the hotel, order a truly outrageously overpirced bottle of champagne, have spectacular farewell sex, and then, tomorrow, I'll drive you to Beacon Hills.'

'Why Beacon Hills?'

'You know why,' says Braeden, and deep down, Derek thinks that maybe he does.

 

+1

 

Buying the land is easy; when a town becomes the new locus point for supernatural mayhem, it does a number on property values, and Derek takes full advantage of that fact. Building the actual house, though – that takes longer, partly because said supernatural mayhem has a habit of slowing down any and all construction work, but mostly because Derek wants to do as much of it himself as possible, and he is, as Stiles delights in pointing out, only one man.

'Or one werewolf, really. Whatever,' says Stiles, who's currently sitting on the edge of Derek's just-finished porch, long legs dangling over the edge. He's twenty-one now, a brand new Berkeley graduate, and it's not like this is the first time Derek's seen him since he moved back to Beacon Hills – they've been battling monsters, arguing baseball and eating burgers on the regular ever since his return, never mind all the other pack-related activities they've shared in over the years – but it feels different this time, somehow. Like Stiles has suddenly become more real; or maybe like Derek has.

'Your powers of observation continue to do you credit,' Derek says. He straightens up – he's been futzing with the porch steps, much to Stiles's amusement, wanting to get them just right – and looks at Stiles, who looks right back in that guileless, bambi way he has, like butter wouldn't melt in his perfect mouth.

'I just mean, you know.' Stiles waves a long-fingered hand at the house. 'It's a pretty big place you've built. Are building. Will probably continue to build for the rest of your unnatural life, if those plans I saw for matching guest cottages are anything to go by. I mean, _guest_ _cottages_ , Derek? Really?'

'Your point being?'

'My point,' says Stiles, jumping lithely to the ground, 'is that you're a single person – single in both senses, crucially – who's spent three years and god knows how much capital in building a house which, at last count, has _ten spare bedrooms_.'

'And?' says Derek, raising an eyebrow.

Evidently, the days of Stiles being cowed by Derek's eyebrows alone are long since past. ' _And_ ,' says Stiles, sauntering over, 'I'm just curious as to your logic. How many regular guests are you anticipating, exactly?'

It's not a teasing question, but it's not exactly innocent, either. There's a look on Stiles's face that says he's already got his own explanation, and just wants to see how closely it matches up, or doesn't, with whatever Derek might say.

'I,' says Derek, and stops, abruptly nervous. He flicks his gaze to the ground, staring at a clump of grass beside Stiles's shoe. 'I just. When the pack comes home for holidays, I thought – I wanted there to be room. For everyone.' He draws a shuddering breath, forcing himself to meet Stiles's gaze, and adds, in a rush, 'And I want kids. Some day, I want – I want a family, Stiles, and I wanted to build this for them. Is that so strange?'

'No,' says Stiles, in a voice that's maybe a little more hoarse than it was a moment ago. 'No, that's not strange at all.'

They're staring at each other, breathing in sync. A soft breeze picks up, ruffling the collar of Stiles's plaid shirt, and without even thinking, Derek reaches out and smooths it back down again. Stiles swallows, but otherwise doesn't move, and it takes an act of extraordinary will for Derek to move his hand away.

'Derek –' says Stiles, and god, his voice fucking _cracks_ , '– have you, I mean – are you seeing someone? Because I come here, I get home from college and I come here first, every time, I come to see you before I've even seen my _dad_ , because part of me's always terrified you're going to be gone again, house or no house, and it's not like I haven't dated since Malia – god, you know I have, you remember the whole Thanksgiving Breakup Saga with He Who Shall Not Be Named, you let me work out my issues with a nailgun and it was _awesome_ – but I always, I just –' and he reaches out, his fingertips grazing oh-so-softly across the back of Derek's hand, '– I've been waiting for _you_ , you know? So if you've found somebody, you've gotta – you've gotta tell me now, man, because I helped you build this place, and there's only so much dignity left for me to salvage right now, if I don't get to be the guy who lives here with you.'

'Stiles,' Derek says, voice raw. He steps into what little space remains between them, puts a hand on Stiles's hip, and folds up against him, pressing their foreheads together, speaking softly into their shared air. 'When you were sixteen, you held me up in eight feet of water when anyone else would've let me drown. You never held it over me, never asked for a favour. You saved my life so many times, and it wasn't.... you're pack, but you're human. There was no compulsion, no magic. You just saved me, over and over. You're still saving me. I don't think you ever stopped.'

Stiles makes a noise that's almost laughter, thumbing softly at Derek's jaw. 'Should I stop now, then?'

'Never,' breathes Derek, and kisses him.

Stiles melts into it, twining his arms around Derek's neck, their bodies pressed together as he deepens the kiss. Derek slides his fingers into Stiles's hair, groaning a little as Stiles sucks on his bottom lip, and when they finally break apart – or when their mouths do, anyway – Derek's smiling so hard, it almost hurts, except for the part where nothing does.

'Christ, Stiles. Is it too soon to ask you to move in with me?'

'Considering all my worldly possessions are currently boxed in the back of a rental van, no. Not at all.' Stiles kisses the bolt of his jaw, hands sliding over Derek's hips. 'But, you know. For the sake of propriety, I think you should give me the official tour first.'

'Starting with the master bedroom?'

' _Starting_ there, yes,' says Stiles, a flash of mischief in his eyes. 'But we should probably look into all of them, just to be safe.'

'That could take a while,' says Derek, breathless with the possibilities.

Stiles smiles like an open sky. 'I fully intend it to.'

 

**Author's Note:**

> I HAVE SO MANY FEELINGS RIGHT NOW.
> 
> Seriously though, as much as Sterek is my forever and always Teen Wolf ship, Braeden's relationship with Derek is SO FUCKING IMPORTANT, FIGHT ME ON THIS, I DARE YOU. Like she is literally, in canon, the first person he's ever been with who hasn't a) died tragically or b) abused him, and they're so fucking gentle with each other? And I just, I have this extensive headcanon where they travel together and Derek finally gets to know what it's like to be with someone who treat him right, and they're always going to love each other as friends, but Braeden isn't ever made for settling down, she never lies about it, and she's always known that Derek wants that sort of thing, but that doesn't mean they can't still be together for a while, and Derek wants a family, wants the sort of love and pack and stability he had before the fire, and as much as he's always had the idea of Stiles itching in the back of his mind, it's Braeden who puts him back together enough that he finally admits to wanting it. SO THERE.


End file.
